Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley
Catherine Hay Smith was born about 1872 – the daughter of Edmund Smith, a labourer, and Ann Jane McVicar.
When she signed the suffrage petition Catherine was living in Romahapa in South Otago.
She moved to the Levin region with her family in the late 1890s and married Frederick Henry James, a bootmaker, in 1906.
They had two children and lived in Levin.
Frederick died in 1943 and Catherine died at Palmerston North on 14 January 1954, they are buried together in the Tiro Tiro Rd Cemetery, Levin.
Sources
BDM online NZ https://bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/
Family Search https://www.familysearch.org
Otago Nominal Index http://marvin.otago.ac.nz
Papers Past https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz
Horowhenua District Council https://www.horowhenua.govt.nz/